A Theory of Relativity by Jacquelyn Mitchard
Faith knew good, perfectly adequate parents who spanked.
She would get into her car and leave. But she would make note. It would all go into the report.
But before she could close the door of her car, she looked up, drawn into the steady gaze of the teenager on the porch. Alexis shrugged.
“What’s with all that?” Faith asked her. This was not a great idea, buttonholing a kid.
“She doesn’t hit her,” Alex said.
“Does she lose it like that?”
“More now. Her nerves are shot. That’s what my aunt says. Her nerves are shot.”
“Do you get afraid for Keefer?”
“I don’t like it. I don’t like her to yell at her for something like pulling the stupid flowers out of her hair.”
“So, this is fairly often?”
“No. Mom is usually pretty nice and peaceful. She’s got to have it her way. But she doesn’t lose it. It’s just since . . . she’s real sick from the baby.”
“From Keefer?”
“From the baby she’s going to have. She can’t take any of her medicine or anything. She’s like, her legs hurt all the time.”
“You knew your mom was pregnant.”
“I’ve just known for a couple of months. But it happened at like, Christmas, I guess, anyhow. They don’t exactly describe their sex life to me.”
“Nor should they,” Faith said. She hesitated. Clouds were piling up over the lake, thick and threatening, and she had a long drive ahead. “Well, Alex, you think your mom’s in the tub or whatever?”
“I think she’s putting Keefer down. Keefer takes a one o’clock nap. Every day.”
“Well,” Faith said, “let me get around you there.”
She raised her hand to knock at the door, to an overwhelming sense of déjà vu. This was the part where she would be as welcome as the plague. Faith was used to it. She was going to have to stomp a big hole in someone’s day. She was going to have to talk, and talk long and hard, with Delia about her state of health and her state of mind. About private things that would ordinarily be nobody’s business, especially a stranger’s. Unless that stranger, like Faith, held a big piece of the puzzle that would make up a child’s future, in her hands.
CHAPTER nineteen
“I am dismayed,” Judge Aaron Kid said, pausing not even for the grooming rituals of greeting Gordon now saw as requisite to all members of the legal species. “I am dismayed by the way this case has been tried in the media.”
He slid his reading glasses from his nose, folded them briskly, and pointed with them at the McKenna side of the aisle. “I am speaking of the media presence of your clients, Mr. Katt and Miz Kane and Mrs. Hendrickson. The guardians of the child in question have not given any interviews, so far as I can tell, nor have they sought to curry editorial opinion. They have been engaged in the business of raising this child, or else they are inclined to be very private individuals, which, in this setting, is entirely helpful and appropriate.”
“But it is not quite true, Your Honor.” May Hendrickson, the McKennas’ attorney spoke up quietly. “In fact, the Cadys have given several interviews to local print media and to local television stations, and the child’s paternal grandfather has been filmed for similar media venues.”
“I am aware of that,” Kid rejoined, “but these are drops in an ocean of ink. Your clients have consistently sought out national and international media.”
“Excuse me, your honor, if I may point out,” May Hendrickson said, “those media have sought the McKennas. Your Honor, this only makes sense, since it is the McKennas’ interests that were abrogated in this case, so it was naturally assumed by the press that they would be the ones with a grievance to air.”
“Mrs. McKenna, have you at any time contacted the newspapers?” Judge Kid asked.
“I can answer that,” Greg Katt offered.
“I am asking Mrs. McKenna this question,” Kid replied, “and she is entirely capable of answering it. Mrs. McKenna, have you at any time contacted members of the press?”
“Yes,” said Lorraine, “months ago, at the beginning.”
“And of course, that set the ball rolling. I have been doing nothing this past weekend but reading the history of this case as revealed through the documents of extensive and innumerable court procedures, and one thing that has become clear to me is that the court-appointed psychologist and the guardian ad litem have been the sole voices of restraint in this process, consistently drawing the attention of the bickering, litigating adults back to the critical issue of what is best for this child.”
“With respect, Your Honor, may I speak to what may be an oversight?” May Hendrickson went on. “The guardian ad litem in the original action joined with Delia and Craig Cady by concurring on the initial ruling, that is, on Gordon McKenna’s absence of status as a blood relative. So we have to presume that the guardian was biased on the Cadys’ behalf. Indeed, she has been quoted in the press saying that the higher court’s ruling would have no effect on the ultimate disposition of this case. That bias, I would suggest, throws into question whether this particular guardian ad litem can serve the charge as the eyes and ears of the court in this case.”
“That may be so, and yet I see no reason why she cannot now fulfill that role. I’m looking at Victoria Linquist’s comments about the necessity for legislative clarification. She says she does believe this to be an important consequence subsequent to the original ruling. She’s not ignoring it. What we need for an effective conclusion is real cooperative effort among all parties to keep the emotional interests of the adults involved secondary to the needs of the child. And that also means the privacy of this minor child. I think that was the guardian’s main concern.” May Hendrickson nodded, her shrug and the slight upward cast of her eyes negating the message of the nod.
“There will be no more of this,” Judge Kid said severely. “Formally, as of now, I am imposing an order to the effect that there will be no discussion with the press by any party to this action about any aspect of this action. There is no excuse for exposing a child’s private and very vulnerable world to such unfair scrutiny.”
Mary Ellen Wentworth spoke up. “Your Honor, the guardian ad litem and I are very concerned that the constant rehashing by the press of every aspect of this case creates an inflammatory and prejudicial atmosphere in which to carry out a trial. The Cadys have made valiant efforts to shield this child, even while they have been entirely aware that their refusal to join this media frenzy may have had an adverse effect on them with respect to public opinion. So I would ask that you be very specific in your order to include disallowing interviews about anything that has taken place since the death of Keefer Kathryn’s parents, even if those interviews do not include the specifics of this litigation.”
“That seems reasonable,” Kid said. Unfolding first one leg, then the second, of his reading glasses, he carefully placed them halfway down the bridge of his nose. “Now, we have just spent fifteen or twenty valuable minutes here discussing a tertiary circumstance of this case, an unnecessary intrusion, no matter who brought it on, and that goes to underline my point, that it is a distraction.” He jutted his chin toward Cady, toward Greg Katt. “Is that understood?” The lawyers regarded their shoes, like mourners asked to join in a silent moment of prayer. “Counsel? I can assure you that this court will not be affected, at least not favorably, by any amount of media criticism.”
“Yes, sir,” said Greg Katt, “though you must admit it was necessary, under the circumstances, regarding the deficit of the law as it was previously worded—”
“I am not describing the circumstances of the past, Mr. Katt, nor debating the merits or the demerits of a given law’s prior or current wording. I am referring to what will take place before this court here from this day forward.”
Gordon had not included any of this in his calculus, he thought.
The magisterial world Gordon had concocted after the reversal had been a world in which ob
A new trial? Of course, why not five more trials? Why not carry this on until Keefer had her own law degree? Gordon had wanted to scream with frustration. It was like having to listen patiently as his first college girlfriend told him why the pyramids at Giza were not just structures but great big magnets.
But if this situation had been so muddled by everyone who got the chance, simplicity would now seem absurd. Why should the judge pay attention to a higher court? Why should he be eager to make right the clear and present wrong done the McKennas? This judge was human, subject to the same petty currents of ego and loyalty all people felt toward others of their kind. This judge would have to pee on the tree, too, make his own mark.
Real things would have no force. The unseen and nonsensical would have force, like pyramid power had force for goofy people. They believed it; it didn’t matter that it didn’t exist. If people believed in a force, the force would be enough to crush him. He would be crushed by something he would never be able to see.
Gordon remembered one breathlessly hot September night in Cocoa Beach when Ray, trying to cajole Gordon into coming out to the Sand Bar for margaritas instead of studying for an exam, had tried to explain to him the theory of relativity. He told Gordon how the great scientists in Denmark and Germany roamed together on seashores and in parks, using rocks and waves and the flight of birds overhead to ask each other their questions about reality and flux and time, and despite the amazing insights they came up with, scientists were still asking one another many of the same questions. Nothing, Ray told Gordon, was truly objectively measurable, because all things were made of particles and all particles were in a constant state of change.
I get that much, Gordon replied, deflated, wounded. And so, Ray went on, no sooner was one determining factor measured than it changed, and everything, including the nature of the entity doing the measuring, man or computer, was changed, too. If you tried to measure distance, speed made faces at you behind your back. Nothing could ever be truly real for more than a moment, and all variables must be reconsidered.
“Even this conversation is only real while we’re having it, and you’re having a different conversation from the one I’m having because you’re confused about relativity and I’m not; but you will remember it more clearly because you’re sober and I’m shitfaced.” Ray concluded, “And if you wrote it down, it would be a third conversation, and if somebody read it, it would be a fourth conversation.”
“Even if I understand the words you’re saying, I don’t understand what they mean,” Gordon said. “And so this is a fifth conversation, a conversation that isn’t really a conversation because only one of us is having it.”
“Nobody understands what words mean,” Ray said. “But Bo, that’s not the point. There you go with the thinking again. What do I have to do to get you to stop it? Hit you one on the side of the head? All you have to be able to do is describe what you don’t understand better than anyone else. The only person who really knows what reality is, is my cousin Delia.”
And she was not in court, Delia. She was not here present, embodying the Cadys’ reality, a reality of supercharged superiority because Jesus himself believed in their cause. Then there was the reality, according to the press. Judge Sayward’s reality, and Judge Kid’s. The Nyes’ reality of genetic entitlement. Delia’s biology, a curse when it had an impact on her vision, her headaches, her legs, and her balance, a hindrance when it prevented her from giving birth, but a great boon when it came to staking a claim to Keefer. His own biology, which gave him great teeth and funny hair and an estrangement from his parents he steadfastly maintained was not real, was now the paramount reality to everyone else. His discarded razor was only another piece of disregarded landfill plastic in his bathroom wastepaper basket until Keefer glommed it in her seeking little fist; then it was a lethal weapon. An open window on the warm night a blessing until a hornet passed through it. And in all these competing realities, Gordon would not be allowed to do what he could do best, be a photon tracking down the electron and illuminating its evasive presence. He would not be permitted to shed light.
Delia was ill.
She was ill and pregnant.
Keefer’s “new mother” would be ill, not as her birth mother had been, but still sick, perhaps even after the birth. And deprived of the centering force of her own parents’ love, she would now have to share the love she had come to rely on with another, younger sibling.
“These are not insurmountable obstacles, but they do not add up to the optimum atmosphere for Keefer at this time,” Faith Bogert had written. “Delia Cady is under great stress, and that stress will necessarily have an impact on Keefer’s emotional stability. It may not be a permanent, damaging effect, but it is a stressor.” She’d also pointed out that Gordon’s parenting skill had developed substantially, and thus he and the Cadys now could be considered equally positive candidates, though the McKennas remained Keefer’s “psychological family of origin.” Still, she’d balked at recommending Gordon outright. She made noises about all the adults in Keefer’s life “working together toward many joint covenants about Keefer’s care and experiences.” And still, it wouldn’t be perfect. Keefer would never, in Dr. Bogert’s opinion, have an entirely traditional family experience, but would have “extended family patterns in common with many children in her peer group as she grows older. She would definitely need access to professional counseling as she reexperiences the losses of her infancy at each developmental stage.”
Only Nora had been blunt enough, when they saw the report, to say plainly what they were all thinking.
“I’m sorry for them, but shouldn’t this disqualify them? Aren’t they just going to put her through the same thing she already went through?” Nora asked.
Was he a brute, Gordon had thought, because his first hope was that Delia would be swiftly and irreversibly incapacitated? Disabled to the point that her active mothering of Keefer would be compromised? His mind scampered forward with fully developed projections, Delia interviewed by Tammy Bakker or someone, for JCTV, in a wheelchair for life, cared for tenderly by devoted Craig, who would say that he didn’t mind that they’d never have marital relations again, Alexis brought to a conversion by her mother’s courage, all of them rooting for little Jessica Sunshine, the miracle baby, born four months premature and cheerfully stumping along in her own little pink leg braces . . .
Would that be so bad?
Why introduce a wiry little roughneck like Keefer? Better off with Gordon, down among the unsaved.
Gordon’s dark predictions for Delia had been the only thing that distracted Gordon from his fury over the pregnancy. It was a betrayal that filled his throat with acid liquors. It was a deliberate, sneering, personal insult, like finding Lindsay in bed with another guy. His baby was not enough for them. They’d wanted a big, selfish cowbird chick of their own—an even closer, more important blood relative—that would squeeze Keefer out. And yet this season! The baby was due in three months!
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During the first hearing with Judge Kid, Alexis had sat on the floor at the back of the courtroom with Keefer, oblivious to Craig and the proceedings, her long legs in absurd canvas platforms making hurdles for the bailiff in his progresses. Keefer would venture one finger into Alexis’s mouth; Alexis would pretend to furiously bite it off, Keefer would withdraw her finger with a pout of mock terror, then bell out her full, teeming, deep-voiced laugh. Every time it happened, they were all forced to smile, all charmed except Judge Kid, who finally, exasperated, suggested that a courtroom was no place for a child. Alexis, on a nod from Craig, carried Keefer out into the hall.
“It’s encouraging that he seems to hate everyone else as much as he hates us,” Lorraine said to Greg Katt later, over tuna salad sandwiches at Hubbles.
“He’s just feeling the pressure,” Katt replied, mouth full. “Kid’s a law-first kind of guy. A real stickler for no leeway. He’ll do the right thing. He has zero options. But, and I mean this, we certainly do not want to antagonize him with any further stories in the press.”
“We won’t do that,” Lorraine said, aghast. “We haven’t talked to anyone in weeks, unless you count our e-mails.”
“Sit back on that, too,” Katt told her.
“People write who are afraid the same thing could happen to them, who don’t know the laws in their own states and are concerned about their own family’s circumstances,” Lorraine said.
“Well, there’ll be plenty of time to write to them when Keefer’s on your lap,” Katt said. “Just say you’re busy with your own legal process right now. We get our ducks in a row, and we hope the Cadys don’t appeal the appeals court verdict.”